School "Culture Day' - why didn't school see this coming?

[mids2019]

https://www.joe.co.uk/news/school-issues-statement-after-sending-girl-home-for-wearing-union-jack-dress-496690?fbclid=IwY2xjawLkEB9leHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHmXD4szLMfsqNubbE12kCn_Noe5jb2VGlNFVU0_IUIevHxzByCQ-5GXFN8F8_aem_P-q7I_yFCq82TY-Qr8mGdw

A local school state d a huge debate by sending a girl home on school culture day for wearing a union Jack dress. The question is why the school should have naively held an event which actually least a to more division than unity?

My daughter (white British) attended a similar event, for which she paid a pound, and dressed in jeans and t shirt. I asked how she had decided upon the attire and she stated 'well I don't have a culture'. I then had to explain that she did have a culture and even the jeans and t shirt were a product of fashion changes in western liberal society. We had a discussion about all the great products of white British culture, the music,science, results of the industrial revolution, shared experience in great wars, monarchy etc.

There is a white British culture but going into detail about this obviously brings into focus cultural divide and opens up divisive areas whether white British culture benefited from colonialism and past oppression.

Of course culture day probably was meant to highlight minority cultures and act to promote dress etc. from ethnic minorities as a welcoming inclusive gesture but by allowing all pupils to think about their culture we have to define 'white British' culture and by defining 'white British' culture schools have inadvertently started a discussion they didn't intend.

What relevance does it have here. She is British, she turned up in the British flag.

Whats the problem?

Unless it had a swastika on the back that we've all missed.

Our school does culture day and british is not allowed. Anyone who hasn’t got a foreign culture to wear clothes from has to wear school uniform. My children seem to think that’s fine, I think it’s really weird!

I’d say it’s more unless you’re English. I’m Welsh and notice how anyone who dares put up an English flag is immediately classed as a knuckle dragging racist yet we don’t have that problem in Wales and I’m pretty sure it’s the same in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Morris dancer obviously.

I am starting to wonder if the management teams in some schools have a brain between them!

You make Tommy Robinson's arguments for him.
Calling parents dicks for letting their child wear a union jack dress to school makes the left look bad and pushes people to the right.

Exactly! Not exactly worth celebrating!

What school is this, this is shocking

So someone whose family way back are from Ireland or Afghanistan, they're not 'British' now?

Agree. I am also wales and the children celebrate Welsh culture all the time in schools and are encouraged to dress in the colours of the flag, traditional dress etc for st David’s day, eisteddfod etc.

so if my Welsh kid turned up in traditional Welsh dress they’d be sent home because it’s too British? That is absolute madness.

Sackcloth and ashes.

I am calling the parents dicks because they encouraged their child to wear something which they must have known might be controversial and then parading her in front of the media when the controversy ensued. And if it’s true that she is going to make her speech at a Tommy Robinson rally then I am happy to double down on my “dick” characterization.

I think this is really bad, and quite racist. Its underlying message seems to be that PoC, of dual heritage, or with non-indigenous British heritage, should not see themselves as British.

Feeling caught between two cultures and not belonging to either, contributes to ethnic minority people having worse MH. Its not good that schools are encouraging this with initiatives like this.

How is the British flag controversial? You don’t have any tradition costumes in England so what should she have worn?

No, the problem is that the school saw it as controversial.

The problem originates with how this day was framed by the school.

Speaking as a Scot, I'm not sure what sending a child to school representative of Scottish "culture" would entail.

Kilts tend to only be worn either for participating in traditional dance or music, or formally for weddings and so on, and the people who wear them as an everyday item are few and far between and tend to be rather odd individuals with odd motivations, so I wouldn't be sending a child to school in a kilt. It's more a Victorian folly than it is truly representative of anything in any case.

I'd argue that "Scottish culture" for the majority of white Scots is essentially no different to the majority of that of most Western and Northern Europeans, and would be best represented by sending the child to school in jeans and a hoody. Certainly would never occur to me that "British culture" is represented by a Union Jack dress. When has anyone ever worn those besides briefly by a pop singer in the 1990s?

Why is it controversial?

Your nation's flag is controversial?

Go to any country in the world and you'll see the local and national flags hanging out of windows, out the front of buildings even if not government buildings.

Perhaps the English flag and Union Jack should just put a big sad face on it instead because we should just be so ashamed and angry about being 'us'.

I'm not British but value British culture, it is something to celebrate. Perhaps you have to be "outside" to recognise the good but I feel sad that the girl wasn't able to make her speech which was very positive and focussed on all the good.

Let's remind ourselves of the great values and culture that is within the UK. Praise the good and we will get more of it.

As PP said, the kids without an obvious "national dress" to wear (majority of them!) wear football shirts, tartan, drape themselves in flags etc

Excuse me? Tartan isn't part of a national dress? I think you'll find that my nephew graduating last week in his kilt fulfils the university stipulations of national dress. The family clans & their history is of great importance here.

Since when has being British been such a crime! This is ridiculous. Every other country wears their flag with price except us. We’re a joke.

Well we don’t knock around dressed up as a Welsh lady every day in Wales but if it was put to me that I had to send my child into school for a special event then I’d see it as appropriate. Most countries don’t wear national costumes as part of their daily routine as far as I know.

I would complain to the school if we were told that celebrating British culture wasn’t allowed.

I would be interested to know what other children wore from their cultures. Whilst a Union Jack dress isn’t traditional dress, it is relevant to our culture. The way we dress has developed over years, in many ways for practical purposes but also because we are a liberal country. I expect some students came in religious dress that, from what I understand, also changes according to whose in power/enforcing it and in many ways shows repression. Everyone’s cultural dress has changed over the years, a day of culture surely isn’t about just what you wear but how you express and show your culture.

No, they don't, but my argument is jeans and a hoody are far more representative of Scots "culture" (whatever that's supposed to mean), because they are worn on most days by a multitude of children up and down the country and are therefore representative of Scots life, than an item of clothing is which is only ever wheeled out on certain occasions. Likewise with a union flag dress and "British" culture.

I think last time my DD pinned a British flag to her shoulders as a cape and no one complained. Technically she's "white other" though.